Slowly, but Surely….

I must admit that it has taken me longer then I thought to get over the flu.  It must be my age, but it seems like getting over being sick just sucks out any energy I have.

The other day, I walked by my son’s room and noticed that he was being really quiet….

He had fallen asleep on the floor, playing with the little plastic weapons from his Star Wars figurines.

Please disregard the messy room – but Saturday is room cleaning day and I took this photo on Thursday 😉

Sometimes, I feel like falling asleep on the floor.

I have been getting busy with consults because the weather is cooling off and people are starting to venture outside again.

I have found time to do a little light pruning of my roses.

Okay, I know that my roses look rather ugly – but all roses that grow in our area go through an ‘ugly’ stage in summer.

While we are very lucky that we have two growing seasons for roses (spring and fall) – roses are not fans of our hot, dry summers.

Their leaves get sunburned and if any roses form, they are small and dry out quickly.  This is normal.  Roses go somewhat dormant during summer and just exist until the cooler weather of fall arrives.

So once September arrives, it’s time to prune your roses back by 1/4 of their total size.  Then add the rose fertilizer of your choice, mixed with compost.  I make 6 – 8 holes around each of my roses, about 6″ deep and pour the fertilizer/compost mixture into them and then water deeply.

I only have three roses bushes, so this only took about 15 minutes to do it all.

A couple of weeks ago, as I was driving home from a consult, I noticed a home that had raised vegetable garden beds in their front yard.

cool-season vegetables

I can only imagine how much they grow.  I have two vegetable gardens in the back garden.  Our HOA won’t allow me to put any in the front 😉

Last year at this time, I had all my vegetable seeds planted by September 5th.

This yearI have done nothing yet.

Thankfully, there is a window for planting that extends from September through October for most cool-season vegetables.

My plan is to get it all done by next weekend.  I made sure that my husband had time in his schedule to help me add the compost and manure and then I’ll get my seeds planted.

How about you?  Have you planted your vegetables yet?

A Box of Seeds and an Impatient Gardener…

Noelle Johnson, aka, 'AZ Plant Lady' is a author, horticulturist, and landscape consultant who helps people learn how to create, grow, and maintain beautiful desert gardens that thrive in a hot, dry climate. She does this through her consulting services, her online class Desert Gardening 101, and her monthly membership club, Through the Garden Gate. As she likes to tell desert-dwellers, "Gardening in the desert isn't hard, but it is different."